PAUL ROMANO B.

ROYO
MAED-ENGLISH
EDUC. 224

The Last Leaf by O. Henry

A Reader-Response Criticism

The Last Leaf talks about three artists: Sue, Johnsy and Mr. Behrman. In their town struck the sickness of
pneumonia, where a lot of people died and suffered. In the apartment of these three painters, Johnsy was the one
who became the victim of the sickness. According to the doctor, he can help the patient as long as the patient first
helps herself and held on a positive attitude of soon getting well.

If we will read the story in its efferent mode we will only see that Johnsy is suffering from pneumonia but
she seems ready to die with it. But as we read on the story, it focuses on the change of Johnsy’s attitude towards
getting well and surpassing the sickness of pneumonia. She depends her getting well to the falling leaves outside
her window and suddenly draws the inspiration from living from the leaves itself. Often times like Johnsy, we
tend to give meaning to the things around us. Thinking it was a sign or it is fate. Thinking that our lives are the
same as the symbolism around us. We fail to realize that it is us or it is our attitude in facing obstacles that matter.
If we were intimidated easily by the powerful forces of these hardships then we will immediately lose the battle.
Johnsy fails to realize this, she just wanted to die maybe because she doesn’t want to be a burden to Sue anymore.
Or maybe she feels that she suffers so much that there is no more hope to survive.

Sue, on the other hand, keeps on having faith that Johnsy will still survive. While Mr. Behrman who was
introduced in the text as a sort of eccentric and failure painter became the reason of Johnsy’s survival of
pneumonia. He made Johnsy realize that the leaf will not determine whether she will survive or not. Maybe Mr.
Behrman realized that she is too young to die and there is still hope. The sad part of the story is that someone has
to sacrifice himself in order for Johnsy to learn.

Often times we tend to do that. We make decisions without realizing or thinking hard that we hurt the
feelings of others. Most of the time we just think of ourselves and how we suffered, we became selfish of the
situation and the word “I” becomes present all the time. And at the end of the day after we realized our mistakes,
were too late of saving our friends, family or loved ones from getting hurt. Sometimes even worst because we
inflicted irreparable damage to their feelings. Maybe another lesson that we can learn from the text is that we
should always think of the consequences of our actions. Everything that we do or every decision that we make
we should ask ourselves whether it will be good for other people or the other way around.

And lastly, facing every obstacle in life with the right attitude gives us the opportunity of winning the
battle. We should not be close-minded about things. Attitude can make or break us. When our attitude is right
there is no barrier too high or walls too strong that we cannot overcome.